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Friday, January 3, 2014

DIY Laundry Soap Gifts

I've been loving the homemade laundry soap that I've been using, so much so that my mom and I decided to make gifts out of it for Christmas! (I know this post is quite belated, but I didn't want to risk any of the recipients seeing their gifts ahead of time.) We figured the soap would make unique and useful presents, since laundry is something that unfortunately we all must do.

We started off with 24 1-liter Ball jars, 5 boxes of Borax, 5 boxes of washing soda, and 10 bars of Fels Naptha soap (to which we later added two more). It was quite the operation.

We made two batches at a time, using a food processor to grate the soap and then shaking up all the ingredients in a big plastic bucket. (You can see the exact recipe here.)

We then carefully transferred the soap into the jars. It took a total of approximately 12 batches to fill them all up.

To finish up the project, we tied some cute tags (borrowed and printed out from this website) to each jar with some natural jute string and signed our names plus the batch number.

It was a long afternoon of soap making, but I was really happy with the end result. The gifts have been a big hit with all of our family and friends. I felt like it was a fun alternative to all the typical baked goods and candies that are so common around the holidays.

Laundry soap could make a fun gift at other times of year, too. I think it would make a really cute housewarming present, among other things. Anything to make this never-ending chore a bit more enjoyable!